Socks and Needles

Happy Holidays!!  (I'd say Merry Christmas, but that ship has sorta sailed.)

For Christmas (or her birthday...it's all kind of hazy now) I made my mother a pair of hand knit socks per her request.  My first socks!

This sock has a mate I PROMISE!  But the pics are on my husband's phone.

For me for Christmas, my mom got me these needles....

They are Knit Picks 4 inch wood double points otherwise known as "those really expensive fancy toothpicks I got you".  They made a huge difference in getting her socks finished!  I had been knitting on my regular ol' dps which are twice as long.  So I'd knit fifteen stitches, shove the needle down, pull the other needle forward, flip the third needle over and push it back out of the way, then knit the next fifteen stitches, and then repeat the whole process.  It took forever just to move from one needle to the next.  With these, there's no flip-flopping about.  And they are plenty long enough to keep the stitches from falling off the end.  I read some reviews and others took issue with the needles poking them in the palm of the hand.  I did not have that problem, but I'll try them out again just to be sure!

A note about socks:

If you're a knitter who hasn't made a pair of socks because.....well, there are lots of reasons aren't there?  

1.  They're too hard.

2.  Why waste time on something to wear on your stinky feet?

3.  The needles are too small.

4.  The yarn is too small.

5.  Etc.  (I could keep going you know....)

Knitters, let me share a little secret with you socks aren't hard at all!  SHHH!!  Let's put it this way, keeping up with where you are in a lace pattern is a million times more difficult than knitting a sock.  I found the most difficult part to be starting at the toe.  You knit a very small rectangle and then pick up the stitches around and start increasing.  It's the same method that a lot of triangular shawls use to start.  I am never sure I've picked up the right stitches or the right number of stitches.  In fact, I think on both of these I picked up one too few and just added a stitch when I started the round rather than try again!  For my next pair I will try a top down sock and graft the toe together.  

So my advice is to knit a sock.  On big needles with bulky yarn if you must.  Because you can!!!